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What I learned about comedy writing from John Cleese

What I learned
about comedy writing from John Cleese,

the Big Cheese of British Comedy

While Cleese's book isn't a guide on how to write an autobiography or how to have successful relationships it contains some marvellous gems about
writing comedy which I would like to share with you.

In professional writing he encourages:- ‘If you kept at it, material would always emerge; a bad
day would be followed by a decent one, and somehow an acceptable average would
be forthcoming.’

‘Always put the
key funny word in a sentence at the end of it, as this will give it maximum
impact.’ Hmmm worth reviewing our sentences in the light of this observation.

State of mind in
writing comedy is important too and I read with delight the obvious - to those
who have suffered from this - ‘The more anxious you feel, the less creative you
are.’

Cleese’s Two Rules of
Writing Comedy.

‘First rule: get your
panic in early. Fear gives you energy, so make sure you have plenty of time to
use that energy.

Second Rule: your
thoughts follow your mood. Anxiety produces anxious thoughts; sadness begets
sad thoughts; anger, angry thoughts; so aim to be in a relaxed playful mood
when you try to be funny.’

Yet what is truly
funny? John Cleese worked on a lot of projects in radio, TV and film. The groups he worked with created what became famous comedies with varying types of humour.

It’s fascinating
and frustrating when he says ‘We all felt that about twenty percent of the show
was comparatively weak, but there was constant disagreement about which twenty
per cent that was.’ - huh.

So professional actors and comedy writers can’t agree
on what is the most funny - and what is the most fail - what hope do we, as beginning comedy writers, have of truly being humorous?

Sense of humour
differs markedly from person to person. While in an audience we may be carried
away by the laughter of people around us laughing; yet sitting alone in front
of the TV or a movie we might laugh somewhere different in the story.

This is
why I find ‘canned laughter' false and weird. It’s being commanded by an audience to laugh where it’s not natural for me to laugh. I don’t
respond well to that kind of push. Other people like to feel they are laughing with the crowd. Incidentally the
history of ‘canned laughter’ is an interesting one and here's where you can find out all
about it Canned Laughter History

AJ Burton and I have
spent a lot of time over the past two years crafting ‘The Hoodle’ a werewolf
parody. When there’s just the two of you on your own laughing like loons
over jokes of your own devising you really don’t know if anyone else will share
the joke.

Like John C, AJ has
done most of the actual physical writing of this novel; but, without having myself and others to bounce his jokes off and create situations which we deemed hilarious (as
John Cleese did with his long term writing partner Gra - Graham Chapman) - the book would have been a weaker parody,
less confident, with fewer characters and situations.

The simple truth is,
as can be seen in the credits of any comedy, a comedy partner or team will
devise insanely funny ideas together, which one person on their own could never
do.

I don’t feel we wasted the many pleasant hours we argued, laughed, drank bottomless
coffee, building jokes as wobbly as Jenga castles and doing our best to write them
down to create the hilarious antics of Jake and Hemi as they try to destroy The
Dog Who Must Not Be Named, before he destroys them and their friends.
Contact us for help with your comedy writing or publishing on Skype
ChristineLeovLealand or email quintessence.publications *at* gmail.com

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About Me

Christine Leov Lealand is an author and publisher. Her Best Selling Romance novels have sold over 40,000 copies in the Antipodes.
A keen 'prepper' and ‘burner’ (Burning Man) Christine loves the outdoors, is a blue water sailor, historian, belly dancer, adventurer and lifelong reader. At five years old she decided she was a writer.
Christine is CEO of Quintessence Publications and finds it takes up all of her time.
Too frequently she has to stop editing, writing and book cover buying to hurriedly feed her husband, three black cats: Zulu, Polly and Jumbo the cats and three fat chickens. @loveleov on Twitter